Talk:Rare Treats: DONKEY KONG 64 Revisited

"with permission from Nintendo of America"

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I think treating this album as "official" just because someone at Nintendo briefly reviewed it is pushing it. The album's presentation page indeed says that "Musical compositions are © 1994 Nintendo of America, Inc. and are used with permission", but it also makes this statement immediately before:

Materia Collective / Materia Music Inc. and the artists on this album are no way affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected to Nintendo of America, Inc. with respect to this album.

I'll assume the functioning record label knows infinitely more about copyright law than I do, and that these two quoted statements are not as contradictory as they may appear. This would then suggest there's actually some distinction between the terms "official", "endorsed", and "used with permission", which are so often conflated in this wiki. Admittedly, I myself never considered how different these terms are in scope, and happily covered certain things on the wiki if I thought they fit even just one of these criteria (i.e. "I Love Mario Kart Tour", Super Mario Weekend). However, in light of this article, it might be time we clarified that distinction.
To be clear, I do support covering this album somewhere given that staff members of Donkey Kong 64 were involved with it. I'm just not sure if a dedicated page is the right way to go around it, as it would feel closer to what MarioWiki:Coverage deems "fan works by creators officially involved with the brand". -- KOOPA CON CARNE 16:14, February 2, 2025 (EST)

The edit summary for the page being created says it's a similar situation to RareRacers. PrincessPeachFan (talk) 09:02, February 5, 2025 (EST)

I know a fair amount about copyright law, so I'll try to shed some light on this:

In the US, the right to record and distribute a cover song can be obtained via a mechanical license. This license is compulsory, meaning the copyright holder doesn't even have the option to object to it as long as the licensing fee is paid.

The "© 1994 Nintendo...used with permission" line is admittedly somewhat misleading. I think most people reading that would assume that Nintendo themselves signed off on the album, but I guarantee that Nintendo had no direct involvement. (Also, the year is wrong, but that's not important.)

That is to say, this album is no more "official" than any other fan-made arrangement album licensed in the same way. This would include some other releases from the same label (notice the similar copyright disclaimers). I agree that it warrants a brief mention on the wiki due to DK64 staff being involved, but a dedicated article is a stretch.

As for the RareRacers comparison, I think our coverage of that is slightly more justifiable given that it's fully licensed by Microsoft, who owns the characters.

Hope that clarifies some things! PopeLuigi (talk) 18:31, February 7, 2025 (EST)